


barrels

by thefudge



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Road Trips, implied barchie, ost: patrick watson - adventures in your own backyard, ost: simon & garfunkel - april come she will, post 4x17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23745304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: post 4x17.  He remembers her face when he told her “come on, we’re getting out of here”. He was expecting her to say “no, absolutely not”, but instead she asked, “Should I pack heavy or light?”(or, Jughead and Veronica go on a road trip after finding out about Betty and Archie)
Relationships: Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 46
Kudos: 274





	barrels

**Author's Note:**

> is "barrels" a really deep or really dumb title? you'll see! 
> 
> confession: i've always wanted to write a jeronica road trip fic, but the circumstances just never aligned. i tried my hand at a road trip fic last summer and it just didn't work. idk if this one "works", but it certainly makes more sense to me.  
> second confession: i haven't seen a riverdale episode since season 2 but i sort of got the gist of what's going on from cringe compilations, so i'm good? i think.  
> third confession(?): i should rly update my other jeronica fics. sigh.  
> fourth confession: idk how the real world works - if some things are inaccurate about traveling or sightseeing, well, i'm a bubble girl, i live in a bubble world.  
> anyway, hope you enjoy!

Because you were always right  
Just right behind

***

“This is _ludicrous_.”

Veronica is reading from the guide that she bought at the gas station.

“What?” he asks, making a turn down a scenic forest road.

“Listen to this. Annie Edison Taylor, aged sixty-three – and please remember that number – was the first person to ever go down the Niagara Falls in a barrel. And she _survived_.”

Jughead works his lower lip. “I’ve heard about that. Why do you think she did it?”

“It says here she was a Civil War widow and desperately strapped for cash,” Veronica says, running her dark nail down the book’s spine. “And apparently she was seeking fame.”

“Okay, I don’t buy the last part,” Jughead says.

“Me neither _. No one_ would be willing to die in a barrel just to get their name in the paper. Not at sixty-three, at least.”

“Right,” Jughead nods. “You’re supposed to know better the older you get.”

It’s the kind of narratorial comment he’d make if he were still writing his book, or any book really. But he’s not so sure about growing old and wise anymore. People are just stupid, full stop. They never grow out of it. And you love them, either way.

Veronica flips to another page. “Do you think it’s still doable?”

“What? Going over the Falls in a barrel?”

“I mean, our odds can’t be worse than hers,” she muses, looking out the window.

Jughead feels a crick in his neck. He rubs the back of it with one hand. They’ve been driving for a good four hours.

Veronica leans over her seat to fish out the sandwiches she’d also bought at the gas station.

“Sustenance?” she asks.

“Yes, please.”

She unwraps his sandwich and holds it out for him. At the last moment, she decides to go the extra mile and brings her hand to his mouth. “Take a bite.”

Jughead pauses for a moment, looking at her hand like it’s a steel trap.

And then he opens his mouth and bites. He takes a good chunk.

Veronica lowers her hand.

When he’s done chewing, she brings it up again.

She can feel the tension in his jaw as he sinks his teeth in.

Jughead tries to focus on driving and eating everything really quick. There’s something weirdly comforting about being fed like this, but he doesn’t know how to react to her gesture. This whole thing was his idea, but he didn’t get the chance to ask how she felt about it.

“I always marvel at your eating pace,” Veronica comments when he’s finished. He’s just wolfed down a large sandwich in under forty seconds. It must be some kind of record.

Jughead swallows dryly. The road ahead is sentineled by giant, sprawling trees, lushly green. The world around them is green and wet. Jughead swallows again. Uh-oh.

He brakes the car without preamble.

Veronica lurches forward. She drops her guidebook. “What’s wrong –”

He barely manages to make it off the road. He throws up at the foot of a many-limbed birch tree.

Veronica sits there for a moment, watching him heave into the tangled underbrush. Then she springs into action. She grabs a bottle of water and a few sanitary napkins.

Jughead is kneeling in the grass when she crouches by his side.

He keeps his head lowered and tries to wipe away his own spittle. Tries to shrink into himself. “I’m sorry…”

Veronica lifts his head gently, one finger under the chin.

He looks like a building whose floors have given in.

“Here, let me,” she says, briskly, as if she hadn’t noticed. “Good thing you didn’t get any on your clothes.”

She gently wipes his mouth and face with a sanitary napkin. It’s supposed to be rose-scented.

Veronica likes cleaning him up. His face is fashionably gaunt and sickly, very _La Boeme_.

“ _La Boeme_? I look like I’m dying?” he asks.

She didn’t realize she’d said it out loud.

She laughs slightly. “Um, just a little. Gargle.” She hands him the bottle of water, and he does as she says.

It’s comforting to take orders from her.

“You’re always prepared,” he points out, as water dribbles down his chin.

“I try.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“It’s fine,” she reassures him, hoping he won’t say what he’s sorry for.

He doesn’t. Jughead’s good like that, knows how to read people. Knows how to read her, although God knows she doesn’t make it easy on anyone.

Before she lets that last thought get away from her she goes back to the car. “I think I have some mints in my bag, if you need any.” 

Mints. Jughead smiles.

He looks at the wildness of trees, the green not so uniform after all, but painted many lighter and darker shades. The forest is deep.

He returns to the car with her.

He can own up to it now. When he showed the video to Veronica he just wanted someone else to feel as bad as he did. Yeah, he rationalized it as being “her right to know”, but really, he just wanted to watch someone else get devastated by this, and he knew that she was the only one who would be.

He knows that many years from now none of these things will matter. He knows he’ll forgive Betty and Archie and probably even reconnect with them at a mawkish, alcohol-filled high school reunion. Maybe earlier than that. Maybe they’ll all be on speaking terms by their third year of college and it’ll be water under the bridge. The writer part of him knows that the real tragedy is that all of these things are ultimately small. Small human gestures that happen and then stop mattering.

But right now it really does feel like the end of all good things.

He should’ve never set up that camera in the bunker. He was worried about getting killed. He never thought he should worry about the usual thing teenagers worry about.

Veronica interrupts his train of thought.

“I hope you don’t plan on us sleeping in this car.”

Jughead hadn’t even noticed. It’s already dark. They’re not going to make it to the Falls today.

“Got a better idea?” he mumbles.

“Yes. The cozy and quaint B&B I’m already checking us into on my phone. I’m paying.”

Jughead grunts. When he told her to grab her things, he forgot about…well, who she is. But that’s not entirely true. He likes the way she takes over a situation. He likes how well she plays adult. She’s a reliable person. It’s one of those Old World values that seem to be embedded in her DNA.

He remembers her face when he told her “come on, we’re getting out of here”. He was expecting her to say “no, absolutely not”, but instead she asked, “Should I pack heavy or light?”

She booked separate, but adjacent rooms, because like he said, Veronica Lodge is a reliable person.

Not that he would have wanted to share a room or – God forbid – a bed. He’s not that kind of guy– he would never take advantage – and besides, he really _doesn’t_ –

Jughead stares at himself in the ornate bathroom mirror.

_God, shut the fuck up._

If there ever were a time to give himself a break, that time would be now.

He rinses his face.

He examines his motives. He asked her to go with him because he _had_ to get out of town and he didn’t want to be by himself, and he thought she didn’t either, because she was the only other person stuck in this nightmare. He supposes that was selfish of him, because he cared more about what he wanted than what she wanted. Still, he would never cheat on–

Jughead laughs, runs his hands over his face.

He forgot. There’s no one to cheat on.

People are stupid and they don’t grow out of it.

And you love them, either way.

 _Don’t you get tired of yourself?_ he asks his reflection.

Funnily enough, the voice in his head almost sounds like Veronica.

She can’t sleep either so they both sit on their balconies, divided by a few slats of wood.

He could ask her to come over, but he likes the boundary. And he senses that she does too. Oddly enough, it brings them closer.

They share dime store junk food through the slats. Sometimes, they smile, not at each other, but mainly at what the other is saying. They talk about books and movies, trying to settle a tally. Who has seen more Frank Capra movies? Who has read more Turgenev novels? Has Jughead even _heard_ about Turgenev? Okay, she’ll spell it out for him. He throws a flurry of popcorn at her for that.

She’s good company. That’s not news to him, but what is news to him is that she’s good company even when he’s miserable. Even when _she’s_ miserable.

“Are we friends?” he suddenly blurts out.

Veronica snorts. She thinks he’s teasing her, but no – his face is scrunched up and focused.

She clears her throat. “I like to think so. I mean, it’s been a few years. We just never formalized it.”

“Formalized it?”

“You know, made it official.”

“What, like throw a “Veronica and Jughead are awesome buds” party?”

“Exactly.”

He smiles. “Yeah, guess we never did.”

“And,” she adds, “I wouldn’t be traveling with a stranger, would I?”

“Hey, who knows what I might be capable of. You don’t.”

She rolls her eyes. “I could absolutely take you.”

“ _Absolutely_? You sound confident.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I have carried designer bags heavier than you.”

“Okay, I’m skinny, but you’re tiny.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you kidding? You’re practically Thumbelina.”

“You mean my worth is bartered by the people around me and I’m forced into all sorts of unsavory deals? I guess that’s accurate.”

Jughead frowns. “I forgot what that story was actually about. Well, now you’ve made it sad.”

“I’m just saying, I’m not _that_ tiny,” she reiterates, and her cheeks are a little flushed, which is kind of cute.

“And all _I’m_ saying is I used to be a gang leader. I have the battle scars to prove it. So you might want to reconsider.”

Veronica titters. “You still have the tattoo, don’t you?”

Jughead gives a disgruntled sigh. He takes off his plaid shirt and rolls up his T-shirt.

Veronica squints. “The serpent kind of looks like a dollar sign now.”

Jughead groans. “Great. I’m gonna look like those sad truckers who’ve tried to surgically remove their tattoos only to end up with a bad skin rash.”

“Actually, you should keep it. I think the Ivy Leagues go in for “broken home, hard life on the streets” type of sob story.”

Jughead snorts. “Guess you have a point.”

And then he remembers Yale and Betty and it gets foggy in his brain. _Well, now you’ve made it sad._

He rubs his nose. “Hey, have you ever shotgunned a beer?”

She hasn’t, and she’s absolutely horrified by the logistics.

Why would _anyone_ want to do that?

“It’s fun,” he argues.

“It’s stressful.”

“No, you just put your mouth over the hole and chug. Here, I’ll show you. The trick is to do it in small but really frequent swallows so you don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t try to drink all of it at once – Hey, _what_ _did I just say_ –”

“I’m not –mfff –”

“Don’t try to talk, just drink!”

Beer foam sputters everywhere, predictably. She looks like a mix between an adult film actress and Miss Santa Claus. He doesn’t dwell on that disturbing imagery. He tries to help her wipe beer from her eyes, but she slaps his hand away.

Okay, maybe now it’s official. ‘Veronica and Jughead are awesome buds’. They just need the party banners.

The hijinks can’t last forever.

Reality settles in the moment he lies down on the surprisingly soft mattress. He doesn’t like it. He’s used to couch springs digging into his back.

He won’t think about Betty.

He thinks about Veronica instead.

She’s in the other room.

Her bedpost must be set against the other side of this wall. He could probably shout and she’d hear.

He can’t hear anything from her, though.

He looks up at the ceiling and thinks about what he _really_ thinks about her. He didn’t like her very much when he first met her. Then he liked her a little bit. Then he liked her a bit more. Then he stopped liking her again when her dad got involved in the town’s business. Then he examined his unfair bias and realized she was cut from a different cloth. They became tentative friends. He watched her build a small business and mop the floors while still wearing her full wardrobe. He watched her put on so many costumes, some of them clearly not her “size”, but she never let it show that she was too young for the part. He watched her swallow poison for Betty. He watched her try to be better. He watched her reading grownup books in class, with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. If he ever managed to finish his novel, she wouldn’t be a side character, he knows that now. But he doesn’t know what she’d be.

The Poison Swallower, maybe. It has a ring to it. 

She could be anyone or anything. That’s the beauty of their so-called friendship. It’s strange and unpredictable. There’s someone in the other room who cares for him. Who is a good person, but also a proud person who never lets her hurt show. Who nurses her insecurities until they bloom into rare flowers. He wants to write that down somewhere, but then he realizes it sounds stupid. No, he doesn’t have to _write_ about this. He’s just grateful he’s got a friend behind that wall. He’s not alone.

And a part of him wonders if she’s the kind of person who cries silently, who lets the tears track her cheeks without sound. If he opened the door to her room would she be under the covers, wetting her pillow in total quiet?

He should go and comfort her. He did not even give her room to process what happened before he sprung the road trip on her.

He should go right now. Knock quietly and then let himself in. He’s pretty sure she’s still awake and even if she does reject his offer of comfort, at least he tried. 

His brain hiccups.

_But what if she’s naked?_

Jughead sits up. _What? What the hell is wrong with you? She’s not naked. People don’t sleep naked._

_Some do._

_She wouldn’t._

_You don’t know. Maybe you don’t know her that well._

His brain is already trying to direct the scene, the room, the lighting, the bed, her position on the bed – isn’t that a bad writing tip he once read about? _Visualize everything_.

He blocks it, blocks every line and squiggle, thinks of white elephants instead. This is a B&B, for Christ’s sake.

If she’s crying in her pillow, she’s definitely wearing clothes, and he should leave her alone. There are other ways to be naked. She wouldn’t appreciate being seen.

He falls asleep eventually and has a strange dream about the back of her head. She’s opening an airlock, climbing down a steep ladder. She’s in the bunker, looking around, unimpressed. She’s never liked the place.

They sit on the bed together. Jughead looks down at himself. He’s wearing Archie’s clothes. The realization comes slowly, as it always does in dreams. He wants to take them off, but Veronica is _right_ there and she’s wearing Betty’s blazer.

She suddenly leans forward, dark eyes glimmering. She frames his face in her hands and his heartbeat accelerates. He swallows, panicked. What if she – did he ever take that mint she offered – wait, that was back in the car – this isn’t _real_ –

“Jughead, I want you to know…” she trails off, words soft and tantalizing.

Jughead leans in, inhales her scent. “Yes?”

“I don’t sleep naked, you idiot.”

She pushes him off the bed, which is what he probably deserves.

The mind is weird at processing pain. It makes you think of really dumb things, like what if Betty has a twin sister, and it wasn’t her? I mean yes, she confessed to everything in tears, but that could still be her evil twin who wanted to sow discord between them. This could all be some kind of nefarious plot set in motion by the Farm. No one knew about Charles, the FBI agent, did they? And then one day he just showed up. This twin could pop out of nowhere. It would make sense in Riverdale.

His mind also wonders, stupidly, if Veronica knows what he dreamed of last night. If he should say sorry.

The raven-haired girl sips her coffee absent-mindedly.

She’s not thinking about him. Maybe she’s also contemplating the possibility of Archie having a twin.

She’s barely picked at her omelet, whereas he has polished half the buffet. He suddenly remembers she’s the one paying and it makes him feel a little ashamed.

“Do you think we’ll make it today?” she asks, making him start.

“To the Falls? Yeah, we don’t have much road left to cover.”

“What will we do when we get there?”

Jughead shrugs. “Be tourists. Be someone else.”

He adds that last part almost without thinking. But it’s a good idea. He wants to make it up to her for the B&B and the food and _everything_ , really.

“We could come up with fake names,” he says. “Make it an adventure. I’m paying this time.”

Veronica beams. “Oooh, I’ve got just the thing.”

“ _Alcestis_? Really?”

“What? She was a famous Greek princess. Euripides wrote about her.”

“You’re not going as Alcestis.”

“Why not? It’s better than _James_.”

“James is neutral and harmless.”

“It’s a nothing name. Why not just call yourself John Doe?”

“Mine’s a _real_ name, whereas Alcestis sounds made-up. I’m pretty sure Euripides made her up too.”

“Who _cares_? People name their kids all kinds of names these days.”

“Not this one.”

Veronica pulls up the stats on her phone. There’s a small, small dot over Portland, Oregon.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Yeah see, that just proves my point.”

“What’s the point of using fake names if they’re not exciting?” Her face suddenly lights up. “Oh my God, the answer was staring me in the face. You should go as Forsythe!”

“What? No way.”

“Come on. Your actual name _does_ sound like a fake name.”

“I said no.”

“It’s perfect.”

“I’d rather go as Alcestis, actually,” he deadpans.

“Okay listen. You’ll go as Forsythe and I’ll be Cecilia.”

“Cecilia?”

“It’s my middle name.”

And there’s something about the way she says it – shyly, hesitantly – that makes him realize he can’t say no. 

He hates her, just a tiny bit.

They arrive at what seems to be rush hour. The sky is bursting with early summer clouds. The parking lots are jam-packed and tourists are swarming everywhere. He only just manages to find a spot, Cecilia shouting directions in his ear (“you’ll hit his fender!”) and they have to struggle getting out because they’re squeezed between cars.

And yet, he doesn’t feel too bad.

He buys their tickets and passes, despite her protests. Cecilia is only allowed to buy a Niagara Falls mug and magnet.

They find their way to the promenade. They walk through the park, looking at the teeming world around them, families and kids, senior citizens and old dogs, young people on bikes, grandparents in wheelchairs. The air is heavy, settles low in his lungs. The smell is nostalgic, reminds him of drinking fountains when he was a kid, when he cut his lip on one. And he drank anyway, because the water was delicious, even with a little blood. He remembers Archie drinking with him. 

They stand by the handrails. Cecilia is taking photos of the steam rising from the water. He can see skyscrapers in the distance. That’s Toronto, isn’t it? Everything is small, when you think about it, even big things.

They look into the churning waters where Annie Edison Taylor once jumped in a barrel.

Forsythe grips the rails.

“You know, maybe we got it wrong. Maybe she was heartbroken. Her husband died in the war. He was never coming back. He never even got to say goodbye. She was old and alone. And she had no one to be angry with. So she just grabbed a barrel and hoped she wouldn’t come out alive.”

Cecilia watches him. She places her hand close to his on the rails.

“Maybe. But I think she wanted to come out, in the end. I think that’s what the barrel was for. Just in case she changed her mind.”

Forsythe nods, looking at the water.

Maybe barrels are just barrels.

Cecilia places her hand over his and squeezes.

After a while, Forsythe moves his hand away, and she’s a little hurt. But he brings his hand to his hat. He takes it off. He tosses it into the water before he can change his mind. The hat Betty made for him disappears in the foam.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to do that,” Cecilia mumbles, eyes wide.

“Yeah, we should probably go.”

They run, laughing like hyenas. They don’t really know what they’re laughing about. Cecilia wants to go on a boat ride so that’s what they do. 

They find a boat that’s about to leave, but the waiting line is _enormous_ and they know that if they stop for even a second they’ll run out of energy and everything will be _sad_ again.

A white veil catches her eye. The bride looks beautiful. The groom looks a little seasick, even if they’re not technically at sea. They’re about to get married on the boat. It’s brilliant. 

Cecilia grabs Forsythe’s hand. “Follow my lead,” she whispers, and he’s happy to.

“We’re with them! We’re getting married too! He was too cheap to buy me a ring,” she tells people as they elbow their way through.

Forsythe quickly settles into his part. “Listen, I promised you a Niagara Falls wedding, so this should be good enough for you.”

“What, like I haven’t seen water before?” she drawls, leaning into a New York accent she thought she’d lost.

“Not like this, sweetcakes.” And he grabs her chin and plants a kiss on her cheek, close to her lips, and they both feel a jolt like, _okay this is maybe taking it too far,_ but they’re still in the moving, heaving throng of people and they can’t pause to take it all in.

So they don’t.

The adrenalin is still coursing through them when they board the ship and the minister approaches them asking for names, documents and wedding license. Standard stuff, really.

Forsythe looks at his future wife. “ _You_ were supposed to have them.”

“Forsythe Pendleton the Third! I put them in _your_ pocket!”

“Well, they’re not there now, _are_ they?”

“Whose fault is that!?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I was a little busy parking!”

“I’m _so_ sorry, Father, but this _–_ this _lummox_ lost our license. He can’t even remember to pull up his pants in the morning. I swear, I keep saying I’ll go back to my mother’s but he always finds some half-baked reason to stop me. Niagara Falls wedding! I was stupid enough to buy it. Well this is the _last_ time, Forsythe Pendleton the Third!”

The minister looks terribly relieved to walk away.

Cecilia and Forsythe subside into raucous giggles, leaning against each other.

“Was “lummox” too much?” she asks, a bit later, as they sit on deck and watch the shore and city line disappear in a cauldron of mist and steam.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s part of Staten Island vocabulary.”

“It _should_ be.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

“But do you think he bought it? Was I – was I good enough?”

He looks down at her. He googled _Alcestis_ when she was in the gift shop. She really was a Greek princess from mythology who loved her husband so much that she died in his place so that he would get to live longer.

“You were amazing.”

Cecilia shivers. The breeze is sharp. It makes his hair stand up. She smiles. Tears shine at the corners of her eyes. They’re not happy tears, but they’re not sad either.

“Will you be my barrel?” she asks, tongue-in-cheek. And heartbreakingly earnest.

Forsythe doesn’t have to be asked twice. He puts his arms around her.

He holds her tight. She may be tiny, but she clutches him with all her strength.

Cecilia buries her head in his chest. Forsythe rests his chin against her hair.

They stand embraced like that for a long time.

The couple is getting married on the other side of the deck, but he doesn’t care to see. Happiness in two is nothing special. Sadness in two is better. _Tristesse a deux?_ Is that a thing? It should be.

He holds his almost-wife and thinks about her question. _Was I good enough?_

 _Were_ they good enough?

It didn’t matter how much Betty and Archie tried to reassure them. There’d always be a sliver of doubt.

But maybe no one is ever good enough. Maybe “good enough” doesn’t exist.

Maybe right now it’s just “good”.

Yes, all of these things are small human gestures.

One day, they won’t matter. But today is not that day.

Today, this matters the most. They matter the most.

He’s happy to be her barrel.

**Author's Note:**

> did i steal this whole Niagara Falls bit from The Office? you can't prove anything! *runs away*


End file.
